The National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC in its acronym in Spanish) is processing a circular so that all energy companies which supply electricity, gas and hydrocarbons meet six ratios which constrain their level of debt and dividends in relations to the volume of assets, cash flow, EBITDA or financial costs.
According to the National Institute of Statistics, the unemployment rate at the end of 2018 was 14.45%, 2.1 percentage points less than in 2017 and its lowest level for 10 years. For its part, employment grew by 566,200 people in 2018, almost 3% more than 2017, securing its fifth consecutive annual increase and the largest increase since 2006, when 686,200 jobs were created in Spain.
The three main Spanish electricity companies (Endesa, Iberdrola and Naturgy) have reached agreement in principle with the Ministry of Ecological Transition to close the nuclear plants in Spain. In this way, the closure of the active plants would be scaled, so that they would close their operations gradually between 2025 and 2035.
Juan Carlos Martínez Lázaro in The Conversation | The 2019 budget is very well designed from a political point of view, as it is a tool for prolonging the legislature. More questionable is that this budget will be a tool for “driving productivity and strengthening solid growth”. Many more things would be needed to transform the Spanish productive model which, although it hurts us, remains the same as what we had before the crisis.
Miguel Navascués | The perception only that pensioners and health spending have lost purchasing power in Spain is not altogether true. We can see this in the data.The UK has a level of public spending per capita only 3% higher, the US 13% and Spain 15% (excluding interest).
The ratings agency Standard & Poors predicts more mergers among medium sized Spanish banks. S&P also 2019 toxic assets on the balance sheets will continue to be reduced and that the main challenge will remain improving profit margins which remain at historic lows. In fact it is this low profitability which will drive consolidation this year which will help achieve synergies, economies of scale and cost cutting.
The Spanish economy capacity for financing abroad has contracted in annual terms to 2015 lows, points Bankia Estudios, in the process undermining the process of deleveraging when global indebtedness still remains at excessive levels.In the case of households, even if disposable income has seen a big increase as a result of the recovery in wages, the greater rhythm in consumption has led to a new fall in savings.
The rate of Spanish donors is the highest in the world, and its transplant system the best. In the last five years Spain has registered the greatest increase in donors since 1989, achieving in 2018 a rate of 48 donors for every million inhabitants, 2,243 in total, and for the 27th consecutive being the world leader in donations and transplants, according to the latest balance of activity from the National Transplant Organisation (ONT), presented this week by the Ministry of Health.
The political instability is not just a Spanish phenomenon. We are far from the climate of the thirties in the 20th century, but the increase in nationalist populism is worrying. 2019 is replete with uncertainties, but it is also true that unemployment in the European Union has fallen below 8% for the first time since the crisis and that in Spain the number of people affiliated with Social Security has recovered pre-2008 levels.